FUTURE OF QUADRUZZLE
What happed to the game:
I would like to address those that purchased Quadruzzle. The game was originally released as a daily puzzle solver. Every day at midnight you would get a new puzzle to solve. This required a server to house the puzzle data, and was only uploaded to the server 24hr in advance. This was a security measure I took to make sure that no one would cheat and solve the puzzles all at once. Originally the game was designed with X amount of puzzles. Well, it appears that someone figured out how to cheat the system and get perfect scores on all the puzzles. Also a few were able to cheat achievements as well and give themselves achievements that were impossible to obtain. ( hard to solve 360 puzzles in half a year when you only get one a day ). I forgot the axiom of game design that you can never stop hackers and cheaters, its always a losing proposition. Make games for those honest gamers, and do your best to punish the rest, not everyone out of frustration.
My embarrassment and shame:
I'm not going to lie. I was so disheartened that I basically abandoned the game entirely, and shut down the puzzle data server. So for those that opened that app all you had access to was the offline puzzle. For those few that purchased the game and played honestly I apologize. I have had a few people contact the support email and let me know the game was down. Its for you that I have decided to fix the issues, ban the cheaters, and totally rework of the game.
What to expect moving forward:
The game is getting a major rework from the ground up under the hood. The core game will not change. In fact to those that have played it, except for the menu system it will look just like it always has with some exceptions.
No more daily puzzle availability
I have made all the puzzles available to play at any time you want. You now can play them in order until you run out of puzzles to solve. That means that you can keep solving puzzles as long as you want, no more waiting for the next day to solve a puzzle. Binge all the puzzles you want.
New puzzle type, the 8 puzzle
The game will be split into 2 puzzle types. The standard puzzles will still be the 15 puzzle you are all used to. Those will ramp in difficulty from easy to hard:
Puzzle #1 ( minimum of 20 moves to solve )
puzzle #45 ( minimum of 64 moves to solve )
The newly added puzzle type will be the 8 puzzle. Instead of 3 words with 4 letters and one word with 3 letters. The 8 puzzle is 2 words with 3 letters and one word with 2 letters. They will also ramp in difficulty the same way that the 15 puzzles do. For example:
Puzzle #1 ( minimum of 6 moves to solve )
Puzzle #127 ( minimum of 31 moves to solve )
Two letter words seem impossible, and yes there are not many of those. But you will find that there are a lot of abbreviated words out there to use. And as stated earlier, all puzzle types are available in the main menu. And they will be clearly marked for the player to see, and make their choice on which to play.
When you have no unsolved puzzles the example above is what you will see in the user interface on the main menu However, once you start a puzzle it will let you know the puzzle number you started and how many moves you have made. Once you complete it the play button will go back to just saying play, not finish.
Ok, lets tale about the 8 puzzles. Yes they will be easier to solve in a sense. Since the words are 3 letters and that pesky two letter word, you will find that there will be a lot of abbreviations used. So if you are into shortened words you are going to love these. My favorite is state abbreviations, but you might love airport codes, either way there are plenty of them.
Did you just solve this puzzle in your head? Yeah, its not as hard as the 15 puzzles, but sometimes you may just want a break, or a warm up. I got a lot of feedback after release that some of the puzzles were literally impossible to solve. For some I would agree they are difficult, but these should be a nice change of pace.
When will these changes hit steam?
that's a good question, I don't have any beta testers, and I'm the lone developer so things move slow. But so far its for the most part ready to go. The things that take the longest are bug fixes and artwork that needed to be reworked for the changes. As you can see above the art and user interface isn't going to win any awards, but its usable and functions well.
Sorry, I took so long to do any updates on where things are, and for those that have contacted me, I appreciate your sticking with me while these changes are made. Keep on the lookout, this update could hit in late March or early April.